Thursday, September 14, 2006

Storm to storm. The summer's been joined together by lightning. As I was driving up my road last night it forked horizontally across the horizon, over the racecourse where I walked in the morning and five racehorses galloped along the chalk ridge towards the golf course and a high view of the sea.

The sky's rumbled and cracked so much this summer, then the sun's beat down again. A week in Dorset, camping, lazing in the woods and staring at the night sky. The meteorite display surprised us all, it was so clear you could see the trails. Then a moon rising over a cedar of Lebanon. A week in the Blackdown Hills, singing with Yvette and Chartwell - English folksong mixed with mbira and Zimbabwean melody; a sound journey with Juan on the last day, his singing bowls, shakers and voice reviving me, drawing out a reserve of energy I'd forgotten about.

Then a week in Wales again. It draws me back. The heron still in the same spot, meandering from estuary to shore. A family of swans, four grey cignets, the old broken boat by the river even more broken now, but still there, still showing its bones; and the spine of hills that contains a bay. Upstream, the river's white noise rushing over stones, adds to that sound journey in the Blackdown Hills and ponies move from the dark of the trees towards the water, too, slow, heads down, rubbing against a trunk, flicking tails as if they were witnesses.

Lightning and the full moon have silvered this summer. There is so much still to write. The winter will be a time to do it.